17 March 2007

I went to the local retailer (who shall remain nameless, but its name rhymes with "Rite Aid") yesterday during my lunch hour. One of the things I needed was a box of matches. After searching the store, I finally located them behind the counter with the tobacco products. A little inconvenient, but OK, it's their merchandising decision. I finished my shopping and returned to that counter to ask for the matches and to pay up. As he was ringing up the sale, the clerk said, "I'll just need to see your ID for the matches." I started to pull my DL out of my wallet, but caught myself and stopped. "Forget it", I said in my firmest, irritated voice. I am not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure there are no restrictions on selling these things in Oregon. I have bought them from other stores many times without incident.The clerk, clearly embarassed at this ridiculous requirement, said, "It's OK-- just tell me your birthday.""1960", I tersely replied."I need the month and date to put in the register""January first."He dutifully typed it in and we concluded our transaction. (Our cash transaction, I might add. Due to the relative anonymity of the cash sale, I could have-- and did-- simply pick a random date. So what's the point of asking?)What the fuck is wrong with this country? OK, I can understand that a company doesn't want to get sued if it turns out that the matches a twelve year-old used to burn down his house were bought at their store. But for fuck's sake, I'm a middle aged man! My hair is rapidly becoming more salt than pepper. Not to mention the tranaction was undoubtedly captured by any number of video cameras. Even a lawyer could ascertain the benign intentions I signalled by the purchase of light bulbs, a tin of Altoids and a Cadbury cream egg.To the dimwitted managers of this nameless retail behemoth: Nothing in this post will cause you any sleepless nights. The total sale was about five bucks. But I find myself shopping at your stores less and less because of stupid harassment policies like this. And I will be telling everyone I know about it. Perhaps you should reconsider the words "Customer Service."

04 March 2007

I make no secret of my contempt for President* Bush. He's a lying, conniving war criminal, and perhaps the worst President in the history of the United States. His actions in the world arena have damaged our country for decades to come.

However, I never felt he was a racist. I always felt his disregard for the victims of that hurricane were motivated mainly by their political leanings and not by the color of their skin. (No Republican votes down there, so why bother?) After this weekend though, I'm not so sure. Yesterday the news media bandwidth was filled with images of him visiting people in Georgia and Alabama whose lives were impacted by the tornados that hit there last week. Aside from the obvious attempt to appear more "presidential", it seems that all of the victims were white! Hardly any people of color were shown. Could be just a coincidence, but who knows with that guy?

Maybe it's just more evidence of the institutionalized evil that is the Republican party. They have truly elevated hate to new heights. Also this weekend, Ann Coulter called John Edwards a "faggot" at some Klan meeting, er Republican gathering. No surprise there-- she's an attention whore. The clown princess of the right. But I do notice that there is not much effort on the part of the right-wingers at distancing themselves from her bile.And one more thing in this rant: The election is over. You wingnuts got stomped. The few vocal haters that are attempting to keep "illegal immigration" an issue can feel free to crawl back under from whatever rock you slithered. We get it. You hate Mexicans. Now bugger off!